Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making eBook

[Page 256] During the night time, the tent or shanty
often becomes swarmed with the winged pests, and their
nocturnal assaults are proverbial for their pertinacity
and severity. Their thirst for blood overcomes
every other instinct, and pennyroyal often ceases to
have any effect. Our Adirondack guide, in narrating
his experience with these insect vampires, even says
that on a certain night, becoming exasperated at their
indomitable perseverance, and, getting tired of the
monotonous occupation of spreading ointment, he arose,
lit his candle, and drove the creatures out of the
tent. He then buttoned up the opening, and retired
to rest. A storm came up in the night, and so
completely had his canvas been riddled by the bills
of the mosquitoes, that the rain poured through his
tent as through a sieve.

We have heard of the man who, when pursued by hungry
mosquitoes, took refuge beneath a large chaldron,
and, by the aid of a stone, clinched the blood-thirsty
bills as they protruded in quest of his life-blood,
until, by the united efforts of the winged captives,
the chaldron was lifted and wafted out of sight, as
if it were a feather.

One story is just as true as the other, and a summer
in the Adirondack woods will tend to strengthen, rather
than diminish, the belief in either.

The smoke of smouldering birch bark will effectually
drive away the mosquitoes from the tents at night.
This method is commonly known as “the smudge,”
and is more fully described in another part of this
work.

The smell of the smoke is often unpleasant at first,
but it is always preferable to the insect bites.

Mosquitoes are not the only vampires which infest
our wooded lands. The “punkeys” and
“midgets” can outstrip them for voracity
and the painful character of the wound which they
inflict. The “punkey,” or “black-fly,”
as it is called, is a small, black gnat, about the
size of a garden ant, and the bite of the insect often
results very seriously. The midget is a minute
little creature, and is the most everlastingly sticky
and exasperating pest in the catalogue of human torments.
They fly in swarms of thousands, and go for their
victim “en masse” and the face, hands and
neck are soon covered as if with “hay seed.”
They stick where they first light, and commence operations
immediately. All endeavors to shake them off are
fruitless, and their combined attacks are soon most
painfully realized. Their bites produce great
redness and swelling, and the itching is most intolerable.
Happily for the woodsman, the “smudge”
[Page 257] and pennyroyal ointment are effectual preventives
against the attacks of both midgets and black flies,
as well as mosquitoes; and no one who values his life
or good looks should venture on a woodland excursion
in the summer months without a supply of this latter
commodity. In conclusion, we would remark that,
to the mosquito the blood of the intemperate seems
to have a special attraction, and anyone who wishes